Post-poll violence claimed four more lives in the State’s Murshidabad district on Tuesday, a day after the fourth and the most violent phase of rural polls ended in West Bengal.
The father of an Independent candidate in the State’s Birbhum who was shot at during the polls on Monday also died of his injuries during the day.
There were reports of fresh inter-party violence from Murshidabad, Malda and Birbhum districts — three of the four districts that went to polls on Monday.
The situation in Murshidabad was the most volatile with two Congress supporters killed at Ranitala police station area in the district. While one Trinamool Congress supporter died in Rejinagar area of the district, a Communist Party of India (Marxist) supporter was killed at Farakka in the district, according to the police.
Houses of supporters of the CPI(M) were set on fire in Ratua in Malda district and those of Independent candidates were attacked in Murarai in the Birbhum district.
Meanwhile, the State Election Commission has written to the State government and Centre to ensure that Central armed police forces provided to it for conducting the rural polls be deployed in various parts of the State to control post-poll violence.
Post-poll violence had also been reported at Basanti in the State’s South 24 Parganas districts where scores of houses of supporters of the Left Front were set on fire after the third phase of polls on July 19.
Addressing an election rally at Falakata in the State’s Jalpaiguri district, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee warned those “resorting to guns” during the ongoing panchayat elections of facing “difficult times” after elections would be over.
“The law will spare none,” she said, adding that the leaders who are inciting people to indulge in violence should remember that there is no place for miscreants in Bengal.
She pointed out that there was not much of a trouble during the first three of the five phases of polls, which were held in south Bengal and the clashes between the CPI(M) and the Congress in the fourth phase of polling had resulted in such a situation.
